Orthodox Rabbi Teaching Halakha Beyond the Shulkhan Arukh, Judaism Beyond the Commandments

 https://www.crescas.nl/columns/webcolumnlopescardozo/6o4oz/Orthodox-Rabbi-Teaching-Halakha-Beyond-the-Shulkhan-Arukh-Judaism-Beyond-the-Commandments/

 NLC: I am of the opinion that Abraham, by being prepared to do so, to sacrifice his son, failed the test. I think that the reading of the binding of Isaac should be different from the conventional approach as some chassidic texts indeed seem to suggest . For an excellent overview read: The Fear, the Trembling and the Fire by my dear friend, Professor Jerome (Yehudah) I. Gellman, published by University Press of America in 1994.

Today’s Chief rabbis are not like the famous Rav Avraham Yitschak Kook, Rav Ben Zion Uziel or Rav Isaac Yitschak Herzog. I think that in the Ashkenazi Rabbinate the last person of greatness was Rav Shlomo Goren. He had the knowledge and he had the creativity. Afterwards this whole Institution disintegrated. 

 Both the Shulkhan Arukh and earlier Maimonides' famous codification of Jewish Law, the Mishneh Torah ("Repetition of the Torah", a code of Jewish religious law compiled between 1170 and 1180) are tremendous scholarly achievements. But what Maimonides did was extremely dangerous. By writing down the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides finalized the halakha. He basically said, this is the halakha and nothing else. He even wrote in the forward to this masterpiece, that there is no longer any need to study the Talmud because he had put it all in front of us. Here it is! For once and for all. He provides no minority opinions, he acts precisely as what he probably he was, as the greatest talmudic genius of his time and possibly of all time, and we - after a period of resistance when his books were burned in some communities - have turned him into an halachic idol: If Maimonides says so, then there's nothing left to discuss. We canonized him.